2.3.1 Setting the course: the shortage of women in computing
In underlining the importance of figures and numbers for identifying problems and monitoring the effectiveness of remedies, British sociologist Hilary Rose warned:
“no statistics, no problem, no policy” (She Figures, 2003, p. 15). Such quote accompanies the introduction to the She Figures 2003 report, a two-year research effort sponsored by the European Commission and aimed at monitoring male and female employment and gender equity in science. The lack of women in computer science training programs and jobs is a phenomenon that has been well documented over the last years (She Figures, 2012; Hill, Corbett, & Rose, 2010;
Hayes, 2010). Despite academic programs in computer science are relatively younger than other scientific disciplines such as chemistry, biology, mathematics, they registered one of the lowest percentages of female students. According to the last edition of the She Figures report, the fields of science, mathematics and computing and especially of engineering, manufacturing and construction are characterized by a strong gender imbalance. Other recent studies, mostly quantitative-based, trace the declining number of women interested in pursuing a computer science degree in the U.S. (Hill, Corbett, & Rose, 2010).
Besides monitoring the gender equity in technoscientific studies and careers, this line of research is driven by a fundamental question: why so few women in fields such as computer science and engineering? The search for causes and comprehensive insights aims at developing remedies and policies in order to make
science and engineering program appealing for female student. One of the best-known researches in this area is Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher’s Unlocking the Clubhouse (2002). The book is the outcome of a multiyear “insider-outsider”
collaboration, wherein a social scientist working on gender and education (Margolis) and a computer scientist concerned about the scarcity of women studying computer science (Fisher) join forces to investigate the living dynamics of the absence of women in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, a leading worldwide center in computer education. Margolis and Fisher, both professors at Carnegie Mellon, conducted 230 interviews with over 100 male and female computer science students over four years (from 1995 to 1999) in the same university, to understand how men and women approached and experienced computing in college and beforehand, so that to identify productive actions to remodel educational policies and make computer science program more girls and women friendly.
Among the most interesting findings conveyed by the study there is the claim that computing is regarded as “male territory” (p. 4) from early childhood through college. According to the authors, such link between boys and computers is by no means an ascriptive trait, but rather an assumption nurtures by culture and society.
By the same token, girls are reported to show disinterest and disaffection towards computer science (see also Chan, Stafford, & Chen, 2000). Fisher and Margolis claims that such feelings are neither genetic nor accidental, but rely upon multiple external factors such as the encounter with a technical culture that women perceive
as distant from them as well as a variety of discouraging experiences with teachers, peers and school programs.
Clearly, issues concerning the decreasing rate of women studying computer science and the related strategies to foster inclusion point also to the nuts and bolts of system design (Balka, 2000), namely concerns ranging from epistemological issues in computing, design approaches, problems with user representations. In the following section, I shall illustrate how such relationship, while appearing predictable, unveils controversial issues.
2.3.2 Feminist research and computing: a fruitful dialogue
The caveat by which there are many feminisms usually recalled by several scholars in the field of science and technology (Harding, 1988; Lykke, 2010; Faulkner, 2001) is by all means true even in the case of computer technologies and IT. Besides those lines of inquiry interested in detecting and monitoring the presence of women in IT studies and industry, there is indeed another stream of feminist research focused on epistemological questions (Adam, 2000; Adam & Richardson, 2001; Björkman, 2005; Harrison, Sengers, & Tatar, 2011; Muller, 2011; Rode, 2011). Generally, this research strand claims about the necessity and fruitfulness of feminist critique in the various branches of computing (information systems, HCI, CSCW). At the heart of such approach there is the claim to go beyond the assessment of female presence or the assessment of training and careers, to tackle the tenets of computer science through the lens of feminist epistemology.
Alison Adam (2000), for example, argues that developments in the theory of information systems (IS) should be scrutinized within the feminist gaze. This is crucial not only to enrich the critical school of information systems, but also for unmasking the power asymmetries that liberal approaches may disregard or reinforce. Drawing upon feminist critique of traditional epistemology, Adam suggests to assess IS’s epistemology under the same terms. More specifically, she contends that the emerging critical school in IS, which relies upon interpretative and social constructionist approaches, leans toward a liberal version of emancipation and may contribute to reinforce oppressive power structures rather than the opposite. The liberal version of emancipation that Adam condemns is the one that aims at preserving neutrality rather than alleviating oppression. Her position is clearly based on the situated and embodied knowledge along with standpoint developed by Haraway and Harding. Accordingly, the way by which feminist theory can be relevant to IS lies in demonstrating the intersection of structures of power and inequality, which produces hierarchies of knowers and knowledge, therefore making certain voices visible while others invisible.
3. METHODOLOGICAL ENGAGEMENTS
As illustrated in the previous chapter, feminist analysis has produced a variety of approaches to the study of science and technology. Even the most recent critique of computing as gendered professional and technical culture is characterized by different epistemological and political stances, from liberal approaches focused on equal opportunities and the structural processes that keep women out of technical fields (‘leaky pipeline’, ‘glass ceiling’, ‘sticky floor’) to those perspectives that emphasize the mutual shaping of gender and technology as well as the most recent ones that underline the entanglement of semiotic and material practices surrounding technology. Given these theoretical frameworks and analytic sensibilities, I have tried to put some of them into work through the engagement with two different field sites: (1) an historical analysis of the work carried out by the first female computer operators working at the ENIAC, the first electronic computer programmed for general purposes along with the study of some of the networks and initiatives committed to promoting more female presence and gender awareness in computing; (2) an ethnography I have undertaken in an Italian telecommunication company in which I have traced out the role of digital tools and materiality in the process of organizing.